Abel took the sword and shoved Phoebe toward me.
“Stay well out of my way and I will stay out of yours,” he said. “That, I swear.”
He walked off into the shadows.
I didn’t believe him. He was a man of some honor, yes, but that honor was loyalty to his emperor and nothing else.
Niko scoffed. I’d worry about him later.
I pulled Phoebe against me. My entire body was rocked by her presence. The more I made love to her, the closer the magic between us knit together. My physical hunger for her was strong, but my relief at seeing her safe, at seeing her bright eyes and feeling her spirit near mine, was even better.
My wife, I thought. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to will the thought into truth.
She melted against me, but she looked back at Abel before she looked at me. He had already disappeared into the shadows; I heard his footsteps drawing away. “Abel! Wait!”
“Fuck him,” I said.
“Did he hurt you?” Gilbert asked Phoebe.
Phoebe looked at me, her eyes welling with something I couldn’t quite read. Not sadness or fear, but something in between—or beyond that. “He’s—he’s the fourth guardian.”
The fourth guardian?
The horror of the statement struck me instantly.
I heard Gilbert gasp and Rin cursed.
But no one knew Abel like I knew Abel. He was a killer, an executioner. I had seen him take Elder Dion’s head like it was all in a day’s work. He was the emperor’s greatest weapon, merciless and cold. That man was not fit to lay a finger on my Phoebe.
“It’s a trick,” I said. “He kills priestesses.”
“He doesn’t kill them…,” Phoebe said, in a careful tone. “He’s a guardian and when he was a boy, his father tried to burn off his sigil.”
No. I could see his face in my mind. All the times I had seen his face, heard him encourage the soldiers of the Black Army…always calm. Nothing fazed him, not killing nor death.
Were we really hurtling toward the same destiny? The same girl?
It was too terrible to comprehend. Every mythical hell ever imagined by every religion on earth could not surpass the horror of sharing Phoebe with Abelard du Lac. I traced Phoebe’s shoulders with my hands but my vision blurred. I wanted to kill him before he could touch her.
Phoebe was clutching me. “Forrest…!” She sniffed. “You’re here! I already tried to convince him to come with us, but I can’t. Let’s just get out of here. It’s been so scary.” She wrapped her arms around me tightly. Then she moved to Gilbert and threw her arms around him.
“I suppose you didn’t see the menagerie?” Gilbert asked gently.
She laughed through her sniffling. “No…” She held out her hand to Niko. “Your dice.”
“Thank you. I knew fortune would return you safe and sound.” He smirked and took them back. She didn’t embrace him, but leaned into Gilbert and started talking rapidly about everything she had seen there.
“Rin, I shared a room with Himika.”
“Is she all right?”
“Well…” Phoebe bit her lip. “The girl who tried to kill me also hurt Himika’s foot, but she still tried to save me from the assassins. She was everything I imagined a princess should be. I’ll tell you more when we get home. I’m—I’m shaky. I think I need a drink.”
“And a hot bath. And what have you been eating?” Gilbert asked.
When we first encountered Gilbert, I didn’t like the idea of him being with Phoebe either, but that had faded quickly. He took care of her in ways I wasn’t very good at, and we were starting to find a groove where we complimented each other.
Meanwhile, Phoebe’s cat had flown into Niko’s arms and he had been whispering to her. Strange. Now he interrupted my thoughts. “Forrest.”
“I know what your dice said, but he had us up against a wall,” I said, defensive.
“That isn’t what I wanted to talk about.” He raised a brow. Wretch was nuzzling her cheek against his. “All right, you goofy creature,” he said, scratching her between the ears. “I get it.” To me, he said, “We need him.”
“Abel? No, we absolutely do not.”
“Did Phoebe tell you my background?” Niko asked.
“What background?”
His lips and shoulders twitched in a faint smile-and-shrug. “Well, well. I wasn’t sure if she could keep a secret. Good to know that she can. Sir Forrest, I have no family that I am aware of. When I was younger, I woke up in the forest outside of the city. I had the clothes on my back and I had this cat for company.”
“That’s Phoebe’s cat.”
“Exactly. Astria left me ten years ago, and now I know where she went. I didn’t need her as much as Phoebe did. And why did she leave Phoebe and, I’m guessing, end up in Abel’s hands? I’m not sure of Astria’s role in my life, but I know she isn’t a mere pet. In the ancient legends, winged cats were once the companions of dragons.”
“What dragons?”
“What dragons indeed. There are no dragons now. But there are monsters that resemble dragons. Twisted, sickly dragons with rocks jutting from their hides that come out of the gate.”
I didn’t want to keep playing the ‘what-and-why’ game with him. “If you have a theory about all of this, by all means, tell me.”
“I think Abel and I are descendants of dragons,” Niko said. “If my older copy of the book is more true than yours, Abel is a shadow guardian, as I am. And if that is also true, then why did I wake up in a forest with no memories, no parents, no home, while he was raised as a lord and the lackey of the Emperor, to fight against everything that ended up being his destiny? Why would his father burn off his sigil? I don’t need to be a genius to make a few assumptions. Abel’s father knew he would end up being a guardian. Was the man his father at all?”
I frowned. “It could be very dangerous to jump to conclusions and see Abel as the victim.”
“Ah, yes. I understand your caution. In some ways, I am even more wary of Abel with this in mind. I know how dangerous I am. And he has all the training and backing of the Empire behind him.”
“You really think you’re hot stuff, don’t you,” I muttered.
“And you don’t consider tact a virtue, do you?” Niko replied with a grin.
“Well, what makes you so dangerous besides cockiness?”
“You can scoff all you like, but as long as I pay attention to the signs and follow the instructions fate gives me, I always come out ahead. That’s how I went from a penniless street urchin to one of the wealthiest and most connected men in the city in just twenty years, even in a city where family connections are among the most powerful currency. Today, however, I went against the dice, and I’ll admit that makes me nervous.”
“We had no choice.” Damnit, I wasn’t going to let this superstitious bullshit get to me. “Did you check the signs or whatever before we left on this mission?”
“No,” he said. “As you said…we had no choice.”
For a second, I saw a look in him that I identified with. He had no choice. Same with me. I had to devote myself to Phoebe, and despite it all, I couldn’t even regret it.
“I shudder to think of what might have happened if someone had found me in the woods that day, frightened and desperate as I was,” Niko said. “I might have believed anything in order to have a home. Back then.”
“Frightened and desperate? That’s hard to imagine,” I said.
“I’m not heartless,” Niko said. “I just see no value in letting people know that. It’s no news to anyone, but every time you fall in love, you give yourself a weak point.”
“You give yourself something to fight for, too,” I said. I would never understand this guy.
“Anyway…I know you hate Abel,” Niko said. “I saw the look in your eyes. I know how little you regard me, and yet I think we’re best friends in comparison to how you feel about the Lord Commander, eh? But he is the key to everything. If any priestess will suc
ceed where the rest have failed, it’s Phoebe, because one of her guardians is the Emperor’s sword arm. If we turn him against his master, we win. I’m not leaving this city without him. It’s all or nothing in times like these. We need the priestess to join with all four guardians.”
“Niko, we need to get her out of here,” I hissed. “Now that they know she’s here, and they know all of our names and faces—“
“Nah. You think the Empire is the most powerful man in Capamere? Well, there’s one family that could frighten him. The du Bariens.”
“The bankers? You think bankers will shield us from the emperor?”
“Even emperors need money now and then.”
“Well, they’ve certainly given it to him in the past.”
“That doesn’t mean anything except that it made sense at the time,” Niko said. “Trust me, they have no loyalty to him. In fact, rumor is it’s the opposite. I’ll find a way to weasel in.”
“Well, when you put it that way…,” I said. “Maybe I believe you.”
Chapter Six
Phoebe
It was so good to be home. Well, if you could call Niko’s place home. Before Abel kidnapped me, I wouldn’t have thought of it that way. To me, a home was a cottage with a garden, a well and a chicken coop and a pair of goats, not a massive building with a shady business operating on the ground floor behind boarded windows, servants and guards everywhere, or even the intimidating surroundings of the luxury apartment on the top floor, but now I was just so glad to be out of the palace. I relaxed a lot more than I had before.
I drew a hot bath and washed all the palace off me while Wretch kept walking around the edge of the tub and making me nervous. She liked reaching a paw in and licking the water off of it, but if she fell in she would turn into a weapon of mass destruction.
“Hey, sweetie buns, I’m glad you’re back, but how about sleeping on that towel down there?” I tried to push her off the ledge.
She used that magic cats have to make herself really heavy and pliable, and wouldn’t budge.
I sighed. “Is your name really Astria? Were you really Niko’s cat all along?”
She licked my hand and then took a tentative step onto my wet shoulder and pressed her nose to mine.
“You’re still my baby, huh? But—please—I need this rest.” I splashed her and she finally jumped down and got into some very indignant grooming of the wet spot.
We had tried to talk everything over on the carriage ride home. I told them that everyone in the palace said the Elders were bad, and that Leonidas’ advisor used to be an Elder, and that apparently priestesses had the blood of monsters who might actually be dragons. I couldn’t answer many follow up questions because I was as confused as anyone. Most especially, I was having a hard time telling Rin about Himika. Maybe over dinner?
Niko’s cook—or maybe she was a chef, actually, because I asked if she could make noodles and Niko was all offended and said she could make a pasta dish—would have dinner on the table after I got out of the bath and I knew I’d have to attempt to explain. He kept asking and I could only put him off for so long.
The meal looked amazing, I had to admit: sausages and pasta with lots of fresh vegetables and bread, all steaming and fresh and I didn’t have to worry about poison. “Himika…well…” I took a drink. “She’s kind of upset at you for running off.”
“I didn’t ‘run off’. I told her I’d come back.”
“Really? That’s really what you told her? I mean, how did you word it?”
“I had no idea the Emperor would send the Black Army to Gaermon at the time. We thought he would take Imiri first. It was a surprise attack. I knew—or so I thought—that she would be safe with our father.” His brow furrowed. “What are you implying?”
“I mean…well, is it really true that she’s sick and she can never run off with anyone or even, like, be with someone? And you were supposed to protect her but you left and told her you’d ‘come back’?”
“I think what matters is that we rescue her,” he said.
“Well, yeah, definitely. But…it was a little bit of a dick move.”
“No. It’s just—“ He rumpled up his hair with one agitated hand. “Look, I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but the royal culture is so damned stifling. Not for one second was I allowed to be anything but ‘Prince Raio the Fourth, heir to the throne, future head of the House of Kai.’ I hardly even knew who I really was. I used to…to sort of wish that the Black Army would take over just so I didn’t have to do it. No. You’re right. It was a dick move.”
Gilbert put a hand atop his. “Rin…”
“You seemed so free,” Rin told him.
“I was,” Gilbert said.
“And now you’re not free anymore.”
“Well—no, not quite.” Gilbert took his hand back, looking contemplative and I wondered where Gilbert would have fit in anyway, if Rin returned home to all those expectations. I’m not sure Rin thought it through that much.
“I have made terrible mistakes,” Rin said. “Do you know what the Emperor wants with her?”
“He…wants to marry her. I’m not sure why.”
“She isn’t strong enough to marry!”
“He is telling her that he can cure her. And that…your family poisoned her. I’m sorry, I know that’s obviously not true,” I added, knowing this would infuriate him.
“She would never believe that!”
I chewed my lip, unsure what to say. “Sometimes when people want to believe something…”
“She wouldn’t,” he insisted. “Why would she want to believe that?”
“Well, if Himika is sick, she can never do all the things you’ve done,” I said. “I don’t blame you for leaving, but I think she does, and I can’t blame her for that either.”
“She seemed supportive.”
“Did she really? She thinks Gilbert’s name is Gerard.”
Gilbert puffed up indignantly. “Oh, I bet she knows Bard Keith’s name.”
“For the record, I’ve never heard of Bard Keith,” Forrest said.
“You have never heard of Bard Keith? He headlines the Harvest Festival every year and the ladies adore him.” Niko said, just to be shit-stirrer.
“Guys, I hate to say it, but the Emperor could take advantage of that,” I said. “He might be able to convince her that he can take care of her illness.”
“They’re hurting her…manipulating her… I need to—“ Rin put his head in his hands. “I used to have an army and now I’m alone. You have to help me. The people of Gaermon have long been loyal to the priestess…” He was grasping.
“I would love to help the princess, but all we can focus on is Phoebe,” Sir Forrest said. He was adorably predictable, but I was uncomfortable with giving up on Himika, now that I’d met her. “If we win, we can save Himika. I know it isn’t what you want to hear, but it’s all we can do.”
“What kind of priestess am I if I abandon people in trouble?” I asked. “I’m afraid we won’t have time to help her if we don't do it now.”
Rin gave me a look of hope. “My lady, your kindness is truly worthy of your position.”
“Do you think I want to abandon Himika?” Forrest said, sounding almost exasperated with me. “I’m a military man. I know that strategy involves making difficult choices—otherwise you lose the whole damn army. Bear with me. Niko says we need to remain in the city…”
“Yes,” Niko said, stabbing a sausage onto his fork and leaving his chair and his half-eaten ‘pasta’. He wandered off somewhere briefly while Forrest shook his head, and then he came back with a map of the city. He moved aside the salt shakers and stuff to spread it out.
“They’ve closed the gate,” Niko said. “But Sully can get us out if we must. There’s an old passage that had collapsed, but has since been cleared for escape. The army doesn’t know about it. So we can leave any time. However, first I want us to speak with Emmaline du Barien. She’s the most beloved granddaughter of Cor
ian du Barien, of M & S Bank.”
“Pizazz!” I said.
“Don’t speak of Pizazz,” Niko ordered. “The bubble hat he designed is now considered a national embarrassment. However, Emmaline is still Corian’s favorite and her little boys are already being groomed to inherit the business someday. Her husband is in the upper management, although he’s always overseas. If we can impress her, she might be persuaded to aid us.”
“I saw another du Barien woman at the emperor’s palace,” I said.
“Which one? Priscilla?”
“Wore all black, with bodyguards?”
“Priscilla.” Niko shrugged. “She’s always been the strange one. No need to bother with her. What matters is that the du Bariens have no special allegiance to the Emperor and they would have every interest in sealing the gate. It would increase their wealth through trade. We must convince her to favor us and put in a good word with Corian. He could protect us if he was so inclined. Their guards are almost like their own militia.”
“I still say this is the plan from hell,” Forrest said. “I just gave away my sword and now I’m supposed to convince some rich lady to protect us?”
“Not you,” Niko said. “You keep quiet. Gilbert and I will handle this one.”
Gilbert looked at me like he wanted to make sure I approved of the plan. I’m sure he remembered all the fuss I made about wanting to make decisions.
“Sounds fun,” I said. “I mean, I’d rather take a shot at making friends with Emmaline du Barien than go right back to sleeping on the ground. Do I get to buy more dresses?”
“Of course,” Niko said. “But if you mention Pizazz, you get nothing.”
“And the ultimate goal is to get Abel to come with us?” Forrest crossed his arms.
“We need him…,” I said.
To be honest, I was increasingly terrified that Abel would die. With my sigil open, it didn’t matter that he was an enemy. I sensed something inside him now, and I refused to believe he was a hopeless case, even if…
I want him.
It was also harder than ever to imagine closing the gate. The Emperor would probably be furious if Abel betrayed him. Abel was famous all over the world, and everyone in the Black Army knew him, so going incognito would be even harder than before.
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